


Like a Tree

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: London Spy
Genre: Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, M/M, hard sex, intimate sex, sweaty sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:58:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6393538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>With a grin he pushes to his toes and kisses him.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“You’re all wet,” he murmurs, drawing his fingers down Alex’s chest and plucking the damp fabric absently.</i>
</p>
<p>Two nerds enjoying each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Tree

It's rare that Danny is awake to see Alex come home from his run. Danny likes to sleep in as much as Alex hates it, and both find comfort in their solitude until they inevitably tangle in sweet kisses and warm smiles.

But this time he's awake. Some odd dream pulling him from his usual comfortable nest of warmth and to the kitchen to set the coffeemaker. Outside it is unpleasant, rain fine enough to be a mist, and cold, and Danny stares meditatively out into the grey of it while the coffee drips behind him.

He damn near startles out of his skin when the door opens and closes. He hears Alex’s breathing, elevated and louder, and listens for the quiet thunk of his shoes against the entranceway tile. A soft huff of breath follows, and a low groan as Alex stretches. Danny doesn’t need to look to know. Their shared rhythms by now have become as familiar as heartbeats.

But there is a change, this time. Rather than socked feet padding directly to the bathroom to shower, they instead route with curious pauses towards the kitchen. Alex says nothing, but Danny can sense his smile.

It’s equally rare that Alex sees Danny awake when he returns from his early morning run.

Broad hands settle to Danny’s waist and his spine straightens. He tilts his cheek against his shoulder and without reservation, Alex holds a kiss against the curve of his neck. Another tucks just behind his ear, and Alex breathes in deeply as he noses through Danny’s curls, ruffling his hair.

“You’re up earlier than usual,” Alex says, a smile catching his words.

“Woke up and couldn't sleep without you there,” Danny tells him smiling back. It is as true as it is merely sentimental. Danny rocks back against Alex, shivering when his wet shirt presses to Danny's skin. Then he turns, slow steps and deliberate arches, until he is facing his partner.

With a grin he pushes to his toes and kisses him.

“You’re all wet,” he murmurs, drawing his fingers down Alex’s chest and plucking the damp fabric absently.

“Yes,” Alex says, pausing. “It’s raining.”

Danny nods, once, fighting down a smile. “Is it cold?”

“It wasn’t while I was running.”

“Your cheeks are red.”

“Exertion,” Alex says, his expression bright and youthful, invigorated from his run. “And cold.” Danny laughs and splays his fingers but Alex catches his wrists and brings them to his mouth instead. Kisses press to warm palms, one a piece. “I need to shower,” Alex tells him. “I’m sweaty.”

Danny steps close again and shakes his head, a laugh bubbling against his throat.

“No, stay,” he says, tilting his head and working his fingers beneath the hem of Alex’s shirt. “Let me see.”

“Danny...”

“Let me see,” he insists again, tugging the fabric up and letting his fingers scrunch it. When he bares Alex’s chest, Danny leans in to rub his face against it, humming pleasure. “Christ, I should get up early more.”

“To see me sweaty?”

“Yes,” Danny groans.

Alex’s muscles seem more defined now, a little firmer, freshly worked to tautness. He’s like a racehorse, lathered from a hard tear down the track. Danny swears he can feel the shivering vibrations of tired twitching beneath his cheek. Alex’s heart thuds like hoofbeats.

With a laugh, uncertain how to respond to this, Alex pushes his hand through Danny’s curls and tries to step away, or to guide Danny away, or to at least stop him from smearing his cheek through damp chest hair. It does little good, and Alex relents with a soft _oh_ as Danny draws his parted mouth across Alex’s heart.

“You smell incredible,” Danny murmurs. His lips brush the words against Alex’s skin and Alex shivers, fingers tightening incrementally in Danny’s hair.

“You’re responding to pheromones.”

Danny laughs and kisses him again, open-mouthed and hot, allowing his tongue to gently tease hotter than even his lips. His hands work to push Alex’s shirt up higher and he doesn't step back as Alex raises his arms to allow for it to be removed.

The slap of it on the tile floor is so satisfying Danny curses.

“How long did you run today?” He asks. “How far?”

“Fifteen,” Alex says. Danny blinks up at him. “Kilometers.”

“Christ.”

“I meant to do more but the rain was muddying the track.”

Danny bites his bottom lip until the sound welling up in him finally spills free. He sighs a low groan against Alex’s chest, turning his cheek against his shoulder. Kissing down the swell of his bicep, Danny runs his hands upward over the ridges of muscle overlying Alex’s ribs. A ripple of tension, nearly tickled, tightens Alex’s body harder. Beneath his joggers, a stiffening twitch.

“Let me shower,” Alex attempts again, though his faltering resolve is betrayed by the firm grip he keeps in Danny’s hair. “And then we can. You’ll make yourself filthy otherwise.”

“Good,” Danny mumbles. “I want you to make me filthy.”

It takes Alex by surprise, as the casual use of such dirty words and ideas merely falls from Danny’s lips. He is flawless. He needn't think of how it sounds, he always sounds good. He always says something to make Alex’s entire body twist in delight and need. 

“I think you’re inebriated,” Alex says, amused. “Drunk on biochemicals.”

He grasps Danny’s hands and moves them from the tickling stroke across his serratus anterior muscles, running in horizontal divots along his ribs. Instead, he pushes Danny’s palms against his pectorals, pressing them through chest hair curled dark and wet. Gliding them down the rigid, ridged plane of his stomach, Danny moans and Alex leans against him, lips to lips and bodies pressed flush, until he pins Danny gently to the counter.

“Joggers,” Alex tells him, seeking between Danny’s eyes.

Danny looks up at him with a bright gaze and a brighter smile, delighted as a puppy at being told what to do. He loves Alex in every way, but there is something truly extraordinary about him when he dips his tone and uses his strength and height and size to press Danny down and hold him there.

Danny slips his fingers beneath the elastic and tugs, teasingly, before letting it snap back against Alex’s stomach. He bites his lip and reaches again, and when he does this time he peels the skin-tight fabric down to Alex’s thighs.

“I think I really will start getting up early,” he murmurs. 

Alex hums his doubt but not without a smile. A single glance downward confirms that he’s just as sweaty as he protested, wrung dry by his run and made wet by the rain. Danny does not share his compunctions, it seems, as he pushes his palm flat against the swelling shaft of Alex’s cock, tucked inside snug black boxer-briefs beneath, fitted flush against his thighs with sleek compression fabric.

“You wear these?” Danny asks, eyes wide as he slips his fingers beneath the legs, beneath the waistband, back around to Alex’s ass, hard under his hands. “Every day?”

“Not the same pair,” Alex says. “And some are grey.”

He clenches his backside, and tightens his belly. Contracting muscles lift his hips in a languid rut against Danny’s stomach. Danny curls a leg around Alex’s thigh and closes his eyes, the tip of his nose drawn against his chest. He breathes in deep the heady, masculine scent of this man, far from unpleasant, far from unclean.

Alex catches himself often watching Danny as he sleeps in on mornings like these. Hair mussed and face half-buried in the pillow, back rising and falling softly with every breath. He catches himself studying this extraordinary man he loves, tracing every feature with a fond gaze. Every dimple and birthmark that Danny claims to hate, Alex worships with attention and adoration. His thin form, so hated by Danny himself, is revered by Alex.

Just as Danny loves so much the form Alex has, his muscles and hair, his height and his carriage. Danny loves the trembling and the quick heartbeat. Danny loves the way Alex’s eyes narrow and wrinkle his nose when he smiles. He loves him entirely. 

Danny sets his hands against the counter behind himself and hoists himself up to sit on it, wrapping his legs around Alex to draw him near enough to kiss. Heating the morning chill from the other’s mouth with their own, they cleave together suddenly, eager to know the other at a time so rarely shared by both. Alex grasps Danny’s thighs, tugging them tighter around his waist. He snares an arm around his skinny waist and sets the other hand to his cheek, fingertips stroking through soft stubble.

As Danny worshipped attention on Alex’s body, so Alex adores Danny in turn. He tries to grasp the coiling movements that twist moans loose from his lips and rub their groins together. He tries to keep him still, his lithe little lover, and delights in the attempt. Squeezing soft forearms, stroking his legs, pushing thumbs against his belly, cupping his jaw… everywhere Alex tries to hold finds Danny’s ceaseless movement spilling free to thin limbs and wanton moans. Trying to hold him is like trying to keep water in one’s fist.

“I love you,” Alex whispers, before in joined sounds of need and want they kiss again. He pulls Danny to the edge of the counter and off, holding him easily aloft. His joggers slip to his ankles and Alex steps out of them, nearly staggering when Danny shoves himself hard against Alex’s chest, legs tightening to bring his body higher. Alex blinks up at him, with nothing less than wonder.

It is silly and warm. Alex should shower. He is cold and exhausted. He is sweaty. But Danny cannot let him go when he is also so entirely masculine, when he smells most like himself and Danny grows such a primitive need to cling and clutch and hold close.

“Just a minute more,” Danny begs, laughing. “Just another minute…”

“Until?”

“Until you go shower and take me with you,” Danny tells him, pressing hot kisses to his face and jaw and throat, breathing deep the scent of him as his hands seek over Alex’s back. Alex clutches him close, panting softly beneath the ferocity of attention laid over him, everywhere over him. A few steps more carry them to wall beside the bathroom, and Alex pins Danny against it.

A slow rut pushes a heavy groan against Danny’s throat. His spine rounds and his ass curves in languid clenches, grinding hard friction between their groins. Alex is hard, cock and muscles and the wide-legged stance he holds to keep Danny in place. He is hard, but he softens beneath every fluttering kiss and tickle of fingertips, moans lilting low and short.

“I don’t want to let you go,” Alex whispers, sliding a hand between them to free his cock from his compression shorts with a sound of dire relief. He rolls the tight fabric beneath his ass and pushes a clumsy kiss beneath Danny’s jaw when he wraps his arm around him again. “I’m not going to let you go. Not until we both need a shower.”

Danny laughs again, a low and delighted thing, and shakes his head before nodding. He doesn’t want Alex to let him go either. When he does, inevitably, both will find quiet things to do around the house. Danny has a good book, and he’s learning Croatian. Alex enjoys helping him with the language, and tweaking his algorithm over and over, releasing updates for it on anonymous sites where those who know where to look will find it.

Danny slips a hand down to stroke Alex with a grin, and tilts his head teasingly at him. He himself is still dressed in his sleep shorts and one of Alex's shirts, but he makes no effort to bare himself. He knows Alex will tug down his shorts enough to stroke him and touch. He knows that Alex will find just the right angle at which to torment him.

He trusts he always will.

Alex kisses the mole on his cheek. He kisses the freckle above Danny’s lip. He kisses the bump on the bridge of his nose and the place on his jaw where his stubble grows in patchy. Every brush of lips is no less adoring than the wanton worship Danny laid on him with spread hands and hot sighs.

Danny loves the strength and carriage in Alex’s form, broadly formed and honed hard with relentless exercise over years and years. He has made his affection for Alex known intimately, with subtle suggestion and outright demands to feel him, to touch and play together. But to Alex, Danny is a far greater beauty. His body is slender, lissome, ideal in height and weight to fit against Alex’s own. He requires no morning runs, no repetitions with weights, no exertion or effort to be perfectly formed. His loveliness is natural, and his freedom intoxicating.

Alex slides his hands down the back of Danny’s shoulders and cups his bottom, squeezing and spreading his cheeks. Danny’s whimper is caught against Alex’s lips, as a kiss twists them together again. Shameless youthful rutting finds matching rhythm between them in kneading hands and rocking hips.

“If you’re not up for me tomorrow, I’m going to be disappointed,” Alex murmurs, drawing his nose against Danny’s cheek as his friend laughs, fey and sweet against his cheek.

“How could I not be, after this?” With a shiver, Danny arches as Alex strokes across his opening, fingertip circling the tender gathered skin. “Better than bloody coffee.”

“I’ll just have to tease you awake and make you wait for me to come back to finish it.”

“Mmm - fuck,” Danny sighs, biting his lip and letting his eyes close as he rocks back against seeking hands. His shorts are pushed down against the curve of his thighs and he crosses his ankles and squeezes his calves against Alex's sides so his cheeks spread for him.

“I’d wait, too,” he promises. “Hard and aching and wanting, for you to get back. Wet and panting and hungry for me.”

Danny’s voice squeaks high when Alex presses a finger against him, just to tease a stretch. It's been several days since they've been intimate, content to lie alongside each other and just touch, whisper sweet words and kiss. Most days are like that now, punctuated by moments of deep, languid intimacy or rough, needy claiming. Most days they are entirely satisfied by simply laying close and knowing the other is near.

Most days.

Alex ducks his head and sucks hard against Danny’s rocketing pulse. Leaving mauve marks in his wake, he kisses down to his collarbone, teeth placed against the hard ridge and removed just as quickly. Danny can only cling to him, push and pull himself upward when there’s room enough to do so, but there’s no urgency to his own movement when Alex moves Danny’s body for him.

“Would you wait, ready for me?” Alex asks, dipping a finger into his mouth before returning it to rub smooth circles around Danny’s entrance, the tip teasing inward. “Your bottom up, lying on your belly?”

“Fuck,” Danny whines, rocking down against Alex’s gentle penetration. “Yes.”

“Would you wait for me sometimes to be on top? To hold me down instead and tell me what you’re going to do to me?”

“Terrible, terrible things,” Danny promises with a laugh, parting his lips wide when one finger and then another penetrates deeper still. Once in a while it strikes him the positions they find themselves in, the positions he finds himself in. But they no longer feel forced and frightening. They no longer make him feel ill with the smell of sickly sweet smoke and rough hands.

With every touch, Alex heals him of old memories.

“Come on,” he coaxes in a whisper, ducking his head to press their foreheads together. He threads his fingers through Alex’s hair and holds him near as he continues to rut deliberately down against him. Slowly, Danny smiles.

He can feel Alex’s orgasm the way animals can sense an earthquake before it hits. Tremors shiver his muscles tight and prickle his skin, his rising gasps like gusting wind. Danny runs a hand up through Alex’s hair and breathes against his cheek, coaxing him in sweet words and dirty ones, confessing his love for him and begging to feel his come. Grimacing ecstasy clenches Alex’s teeth together, furrows his brow, and then all at once his expression gives way to bliss. He comes with a jerking thrust against him, and another, and another, unsteady shoves that trap Danny against the wall as the first spots of damp soak through his pants to his skin beneath.

With every exploration, Danny shows Alex how special all of this can be.

Other lovers might have resented Alex’s unconscious selfishness in bed. He finishes first, almost always. He is starved for touch and attention. Those other lovers, of which Danny delights to know there are none, would have missed the adoration that softens Alex’s eyes when they meet just after. They’d never have known how despite the pleasured weakness in his body, Alex does not yet let Danny touch the ground, but carries him towards the bed.

What a shame for them to never feel how hot Alex’s lips are as they spread over bare skin to twitching stomach. What a bloody shame that they were so foolish as to miss the gratitude that pours like praise made physical when Alex has sated himself. Working his way down Danny’s body, Alex holds his narrow hips with wide hands, tucking them beneath to spread him wide. With his chin against the waistband of Danny’s pants, caught around his thighs, Alex ducks his head and opens his mouth, swallowing Danny whole.

“Idiots,” Danny whispers, before a laugh takes him and he grabs his hair with a moan.

It is a devouring, adoring and gentle but entirely possessive. Danny's pleasure has been willingly relinquished to this man for nearly two years now, and not once has his mind wandered towards any others. Alex knows just which buttons to push, he knows which senses to tease, he knows which words to murmur. He has learned, as apt a student in this as in everything else, and he has certainly practiced. A selfish lover he may be with orgasm, but he is devoted unlike any other Danny has ever had when it comes to reminding Danny just how important he is.

He feels beautiful in his hands.

He feels worthy.

He feels needed, and wanted, and as incredible as Alex claims daily he is.

“Fuck, Alex, fuck,” he whispers, teeth gritted and toes curled and body tense and trembling. When he tries to bend from the bed, Alex holds him down, not enough to truly stop his movement but enough that Danny groans from the gentle control pressed against his hips. Alex’s lips are reddened, flushed and swollen from sucking, shining with spit. Focused on the hard suck, focused on stroking his tongue against the underside of Danny’s shaft, he only lifts his eyes when Danny touches his cheek. Long-lashed and wide-pupiled, Alex meets his gaze and in the corners of his eyes crinkle the hint of a smile.

Danny’s body jerks tight, lean muscle snapping firm. His lips part in a breathless, silent gasp as his orgasm unfurls and his cock swells twitching in Alex’s mouth. Another spurt unspools when Alex’s throat works to swallow it all down. Another when Alex curves his fingernails and makes a soft sound, drinking down Danny’s copious come after days without release. Danny empties himself until he can no longer hold up his head to watch, catching only the sight of Alex’s thumb brought to his chin to wipe away a dollop before Danny sinks heavy back into the bed with a helpless laugh.

“I love you,” Danny sighs, shaking. Alex suckles softer now. He keeps Danny’s dick in his mouth until it begins to wilt, and only then lets it slip from between his lips. Danny rests a hand on his cheek and Alex nuzzles against it, pressing a sticky kiss to his palm before rising slowly along the length of Danny’s body. Kiss after kiss are traced across his cheek, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, his bottom lip, gentled from the ferocious need that Danny stoked in him, made lax against his lover.

“Now I’m tired,” murmurs Alex, low and pleased and sweetly shy. “I wasn’t before.”

“You’re saying I’m more exhausting than running fifteen kilometers?”

“Yes,” Alex says, smile widening to a grin when Danny laughs. He runs a hand across his chest, kissing the dark little nipple closest to him, and stroking the other. “And more enjoyable.”

Danny jerks gently, overly sensitive still, and a right mess, as Alex promised he would be. He runs his fingers next through Alex’s hair, tugging and mussing it, grinning when it sticks up every which way because of the sweat.

“Good,” Danny mumbles, pulling Alex closer and stroking down his back next, all the way to his shorts. “I like being the reason we use up all the hot water in the shower.”

“You’re terrible,” Alex informs him, and Danny snorts.

“I know. God, I know, and you still love me and you still put up with me.”

“Always.”

Danny tilts his head and regards the beautiful sweaty man against him. Alex looks relaxed entirely, no tension in his body at all. His eyes rest at half-mast and he blinks slowly, letting light blue slip to meet Danny’s darker eyes.

“I could use that shower.”

“You could, certainly.”

“And a coffee,” Alex adds, smiling when Danny hums, pretending to consider. “And breakfast, after. In bed.”

“Now you're pushing it,” Danny laughs.

“The sheets are already a mess,” Alex says, smiling against Danny’s cheek as he nuzzles against his hairline.

“Fair point. Will you climb back into them once you’ve just bathed?”

Alex considers the dilemma, his own insistence on tidiness, and Danny’s comfort by compare. “Yes,” he decides. “We’ll shower. I’ll change the sheets while you start breakfast…”

“And if we drop food in them?”

“I’ll change them again,” Alex says, watching with pleasure as Danny snorts, grinning.

Alex slips a little lower, to rest his cheek against Danny’s chest. Danny wraps his arm around Alex’s shoulder, fingers still twining in his hair, and lets himself feel truly lovely, truly beloved in the way that only Alex has ever made him feel. Warm hands press across his body, stroking firmly and feather-light in equal measure. He touches across the soft, slender swell of Danny’s stomach. He caresses over his ribs, and follows the speckled freckles and birthmarks on his chest. In moments like this, Danny sometimes recalls Alex’s confession - early in their relationship - that for most of his life, Alex has disliked being touched.

He can no more believe it now than he did then, when every contact is made with something much like worship. Alex clings to him, especially after sex, but even in their life outside of that. He grasps his hand, slips an arm around his waist. He kisses his hair and breathes warmth against his neck. Making up for a life previously deprived of contact, and erasing touch by touch the bad memories that others pressed to Danny’s skin.

“There’s not been a day since you brought that drink back to me,” Alex murmurs, “that I haven’t thought how glad I am that you did. It’s chance, coincidence, not luck - there is no such thing,” he says. “But it’s the only word I can find that feels right for having met you.”

Danny wraps both arms around Alex now and hums warm against him. He would have waited every day in the rain, through fall and into winter, through winter into spring to see Alex again. Even just the one time. Even just to look at him again.

“I feel lucky,” Danny tells him. “I never believed in luck before either. I never had it. With you I feel it, every day.”

Alex shakes his head, smiling as he tilts his cheek and traces his nose against Danny’s chest. A dusky blush warms beneath his eyes, bringing to life pale freckles otherwise invisible. Danny kisses his brow, and thumbs softly along his cheek.

“We’re a good fit,” Alex says. “We work well together.”

“We live well together.”

“We travel well together.”

“We fuck well together.”

Alex laughs, a single brash note, startled by the words. He lifts his eyes to Danny, studying the joy that draws up his eyes, the big teeth and the tilt of his grin. Leaning upward, he kisses his bottom lip and holds it for a moment.

“Yes,” he agrees. “That too. Especially that, I think.”

“Good,” Danny breathes, catching Alex gently against his cheeks to kiss him deeper before letting him go. “Now, a shower. We both need it.”

“Might want to save the hot water on this one though,” Alex tells him, grinning as he crawls back off of Danny and peels his sticky shorts down his thighs. “There's a chance we'll need another by the early afternoon.”


End file.
